WAUSAU - The Wausau Police Department plans to hire two new patrol officers next year after receiving a grant from the state Department of Justice.

Wausau is one of 10 Wisconsin communities receiving a $121,000 grant from the state. These 10 municipalities were selected because they have the highest rates of violent crime in communities with 25,000 people or more, according to data collected by the justice department using the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting system. The UCR defines violent crime as murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

The grant will run for three years, from 2019 through 2021, and requires a 25 percent match by the city of about $40,500. However, Wausau Police Chief Ben Bliven said the city will need to contribute just under $61,000 to cover the salary, estimated overtime costs and benefits for the two new officers. With the addition of the two new officers, the department's sworn staff will increase to 78.

The Wausau City Council approved the grant Tuesday and decided to pull half the city match money from the police department's 2019 overtime budget and the other half from the animal control fund, Bliven said Wednesday. The city will be required to match the grant each of the three years.

Bliven said this is not the first time the department has been the recipient of this particular grant. Though the department did not receive the grant when it was last awarded in 2016, Wausau did get the money the nine years prior to that. He said the city has been able to retain previous officers added to the department from this grant using city funds.

"At the end of day, it's a policy decision by city council whether to find money to keep these positions," Bliven said. "There's a chance we might not have these positions in three years if we don't have grant funding, but that's a decision we'll have to make in three years as a community if we don't get the grant again."

While having two new officers on the street won't necessarily reduce the number of violent crimes in Wausau, Bliven said the department is dedicated to working with community partners to address issues of poverty, education, mental health and drug abuse, which many times are root causes of crime.

"If we do the right things in the right ways, we can impact crime rates," Bliven said.

Bliven said the department is currently in the process of filling four vacancies and has at least two viable candidates in mind to fill the two new positions. He hopes to have all six positions filled by the beginning of 2019.